Kuklos – Of Wiggling (1927). Section three

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One day last year I cut this precious paragraph from a London evening paper: “Retailers for some reason or other are of opinion that cycling for pleasure will be more largely indulged in this summer than for many years past.”

It will, and not alone in summer. Only the deepest of snow and the densest of fog stops the new cyclist. Why? “For some reason or other,” says the puzzled Fleet Street journalist, scratching his head with one thumb while he flattens the other on the starting-button of his stink- waggon. Let us resume the original thread and lead him to a consideration and summary of the motives of those who persistently “ride or wriggle on wheels.” The evening paper’s saying was eternally true, then:-

1. Because the land of our fathers is very fair to see on the whole, and because it likes us to go out in joy and admiration of it.

2. Because the number increases year by year of those who would fain roam that land without taking either noises or smells with them.

3. Because British bicycles are very cheap, and of wonderful quality.

4. Because British roads are the best in the world, and as good in winter as in summer.

5. Because the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.

6. Because a bicycle is a cunning mechanical device for the conservation of energy, and the making of hard work easy.

7. Because a real bicycle is not a push-bike any longer, meaning a machine which requires a lot of pushing.

8. Because we islanders had ever exploring minds, and a liking for vagrancy of the most free and independent kind.

9. Because you can lift a real bicycle over stile and gate, and carry it across stepping-stones.

10. Because you can hear the birds and smell the flowers as you ride.

11. Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of “swank ” when they travel the roads and lanes.

12. Because the narrow and curving little ways, where peace and beauty abide, were made for the bicycle, and the bicycle for them.

13. Because it appeals strongly to many people that the passage of a bicycle very rarely causes fear or discomfort to other wayfarers.

14. Because it is a fine thing to travel by virtue of your own power.

15. Because you can be just as economical of your own energy, or just as prodigal of it, as you please.

16. Because the scope of your travel increases so widely the more you keep physically fit that a bicycle is a strong incentive to the cultivation of good health.

17. Because a corpus sanum is more than half-way to a mens sana.

18. Because health and happiness are more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold.

19. Because the cyclist does not need to carry a directory of repair-shops.

20. Because June follows May; and in January the earth has the beauty of sleep.

21. Because wholesome people like to feel the elemental contact of sun and wind and rain; and because a bicycle has no “saloon body.”

22. Because the cyclist fears neither great heat nor great frost, for he makes his own draught in the dog- days and it blows freely through his loose and scanty clothing; while in frozen winter he can keep the warm blood coursing freely.

23. Because she can saunter so slowly if she likes that she can count the bells in the crimson carillon of the foxglove.

24. Because she can hurry so if she likes that she can leave Hoxton or Ancoats on a Saturday afternoon and see Jordans and Aldbury, or Budworth Big and Budworth Little, before she gets back to bed at Hoxton or Ancoats.

25. Because the bicycle can be (and is) the instrument of keen competitive athletics equally with the bat, the oar, the racquet; and because less noise is made about its records than about those of the bat, the oar, the racquet, so that they appeal to older and more dignified sporting instincts than those in the limelight, with ” photos on back page.”

26. Because a strong man rejoiceth to run a race, and a young man in his youth.

27. Because young men like to think that they too can ride into the bicycle’s roll of fame along with Mills and Shorland, Green and Davey, Southall and Rossiter; and departing leave behind them wheel-prints on the sands of time.

28. Because the bicycle runs on but one narrow track, so that it can travel the moorland paths, and even cross the Larig Ghru Pass and High Cup Nick, as it has done.

29. Because it is not illegal to cycle on footpaths unless they run by the side of public roads.

30. Because the bicycle brings its owner no demand note from the Inland Revenue on the first day of every year.

31. Because convicts must wear numbers, but cyclists need not.

32. Because the only freemasonry of the road is that of the bicycle.

33. Because there is no comradeship to better that of the cycling clubs of to-day.

34. Because the lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places, yea, we have a goodly heritage.

35. Because “to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and free.”*

36. Because the cyclist need not wear several leather suits to keep out the draught, nor upholster his head in fear of telegraph-posts.

37. Because travel is the finest educational system of all; and cycling the cheapest, easiest, and most educational means of travel.

38. Because the bicycle does not force you to keep going, but encourages you to dally and commune with the stranger and foreigner.

39. Because on every real bicycle there is the unseen pennant of progress, the standard of democracy, the banner of freedom.

These be the Thirty-Nine Articles of our faith.

Do you see that couple standing by the crossroads, and a tandem bicycle that leans idly against the hedge? The slender symmetry of its steel tubes accords well with the gossamer geometry that unites foxglove and bracken about it. No human dwelling is in sight, and the sun has just dropped below their ken, yet that man and woman seem in no hurry. But for feminine touches about her neck and hair, they are dressed very much alike. He strolls round the fingerpost as he fills his old briar, and then blows fragrant clouds up at the white arms, in even contemplation of their fourfold tale. Through one of those places they passed an hour since; the other three names are unfamiliar. Which way shall they take?

Now they sit on a bank of primrose leaves and polypods under the hazel and hawthorn, listening to the blackbird’s parting chuckle, and watching the waning fire in the west. The man breaks a short stick from the hedge, sharpens one end of it, and throws his divining-rod into the air in the middle of the crossways. The fallen index points “To Maiden Abbas 8 miles.” That is where they will sleep to-night. Effortless, as it seems, they bestride the dual bicycle together and glide away. You hear nothing as they go, save a light little laugh which floats back from their going.

That is freedom.

Of such are they who “ride or wriggle on wheels.”